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How To Install Store Items

Comments

  • cianeciane Posts: 16,996 Member
    Yeah! I am glad you are finished now.
  • TeaniasTeanias Posts: 2,160 Member
    I now have everything from my old computer uploaded to the exchange! Can you get in trouble for putting something in the exchange straight from the game ? I have 3 buildings that I am not sure I did anything to I know I had planned to but I can’t remember if I did or not. I sometimes put the original building in my library before changing them so I can start over if I don’t like the way something ends up and I can’t remember if that’s what I did with those ones or not!
  • cianeciane Posts: 16,996 Member
    You won't get in trouble. You can always remove it from your studio if you find it's one you didn't alter.
  • TeaniasTeanias Posts: 2,160 Member
    That’s what I plan on doing after I put them on my new computer because even if I did alter them they would be works in progress. Glad to know I won’t get in trouble in the meantime.
  • GoodywoodGoodywood Posts: 4,612 Member
    Hello guys! Well, I've finished the store merging few months ago.

    I'm now trying to transfer everything I need into my new TS3 folder.

    I do have a question about installing festival lots. I'm trying to do that now and when I installed them I got an ".dbc" file instead of an ".ebc" file. So I'm not sure if that is suppose to be like that or am I suppose to merge the Festival lots with an ebc file? I have the Library files.
    PLEASE FIX TEENS IN TS4! I NEED YOUNGER TEENS NOT YA TEENS! (^_^)Please add Music Bands with lead singers! Please add vehicles and garages! Vehicles have always been part of The Sims.
  • cianeciane Posts: 16,996 Member
    Venues often install as .dbc rather than .ebc as I often have that problem with store venues. All you need is the library file.

    I'd install all the festival lots in a copy of the sims 3 folder and then copy over just the library files. That's just to make your sims 3 folder as small and cleaned up as possible. It's the same way to treat anything you install from the exchange to avoid cc. If you just copy over the library file and not the .dbc or dcbackup files that are created, then you only have the item in one place - the library (bin) or saved sims folder, rather than three.
  • GoodywoodGoodywood Posts: 4,612 Member
    ciane wrote: »
    Venues often install as .dbc rather than .ebc as I often have that problem with store venues. All you need is the library file.

    I'd install all the festival lots in a copy of the sims 3 folder and then copy over just the library files. That's just to make your sims 3 folder as small and cleaned up as possible. It's the same way to treat anything you install from the exchange to avoid cc. If you just copy over the library file and not the .dbc or dcbackup files that are created, then you only have the item in one place - the library (bin) or saved sims folder, rather than three.

    Thank you so much Ciane! *hugs* I'm glad it is very simple and easy. Makes perfect sense!

    I hope you have been well. :) *hugs again*
    PLEASE FIX TEENS IN TS4! I NEED YOUNGER TEENS NOT YA TEENS! (^_^)Please add Music Bands with lead singers! Please add vehicles and garages! Vehicles have always been part of The Sims.
  • cianeciane Posts: 16,996 Member
    All's well with me and mine. Thank you for asking. I hope all is well for you as well.
  • LMC6255LMC6255 Posts: 940 Member
    @ciane I hope you are having a nice weekend!! I am having a lot of problems with uploading my lots from the game to my export file, so I can share some lots on the exchange.. Normally, I do not have any problems with this.. Lately, I have bought a lot of store content and I have installed it and I can't help but wonder if this might be the reason.. What would you suggest I do?
  • cianeciane Posts: 16,996 Member
    First, anything over 10MB will be a problem. Second, some store content with their own patterns can also be a problem. They simply won't upload because they are too large in size or the store content pattern can't be found easily because there is so much stuff. For either of those situations, change the pattern and/or get the file size smaller by deleting some clutter.

    With lots, keep flowers and terrain paints to no more than four different ones, if possible. It's less to store in memory and display.

    Lots and sim households can be placed in the library/bin and copied from there into a fresh sims 3 folder (not a vanilla one, but one that is a saved copy of freshly installed store content sims 3 folder). Saved sims is the folder for unplayed CAS sims.

    Keeping a copy of your freshly installed store content folder means it will have no corruptions and gives the best chance for installing as well as uploading.

    Copy the library file to a copy of an unplayed sims 3 folder. You can open that game (after renaming your current sims 3 folder to something else and moving a copy of the unplayed sims 3 folder from its archive location to the EA folder) and place a lot (or household). In edit town mode, you can look inside a lot and see if anything changed. You can play test it to look for any obvious problems, but if all looks good, try to share it from that sims 3 folder.

    Sometimes, the lot you built on has something you might not have noticed attached to it. OR a pattern you used might not be a standard EA one.

    It is frustrating at times trying to figure what the problem is. There are some known problem causers like the tiki patterns or ultra lounge and the variegated vase.
  • LMC6255LMC6255 Posts: 940 Member
    @ciane Thank you!! I will go step by step.. By anything over 10 MB you mean EBC files? I will check my garden to see how many different variety of plants I'm using, I tend to use a lot of different plants, so that could definitely be part of what is causing my files not to upload.. Hopefully I won't have to reset.. I appreciate your help!! :)
  • cianeciane Posts: 16,996 Member
    The 10MB is the file size of the upload. The launcher just won't play nicely with a file that is too large in size. Though of course worlds are going to be much larger in size, they install to the installed worlds folder. So, they are handled differently.
  • LMC6255LMC6255 Posts: 940 Member
    @ciane I will have to check the size of my upload files more closely.. This particular file didn't give me any problems when I uploaded it a couple of months ago.. I probably will have to reinstall all my store content.. I am going to look carefully at your spreadsheet!! Thank you!! :)
  • GoodywoodGoodywood Posts: 4,612 Member
    ciane wrote: »
    All's well with me and mine. Thank you for asking. I hope all is well for you as well.

    Glad to hear!


    I am well too. Thank you! <3

    PLEASE FIX TEENS IN TS4! I NEED YOUNGER TEENS NOT YA TEENS! (^_^)Please add Music Bands with lead singers! Please add vehicles and garages! Vehicles have always been part of The Sims.
  • ZeeGeeZeeGee Posts: 5,355 Member
    edited August 2019
    @ciane Help! So I just finished (YET ANOTHER) install of my store content. I have Sims 3 Steam edition on an old laptop and my backups would not work with it so I downloaded the content again, installed everything the exact same way I always do, and there's stuff missing! NOW what?! :weary: The reason I noticed is because I was renaming my venues in the library and they're not all there.

    ETA: Ok, I'm starting over and checking as I go to make sure things installed. :confounded:
  • cianeciane Posts: 16,996 Member
    Good luck @ZeeGee! Yeah, whenever you change from digital download or disc version, the store content has to be redownloaded. It's a chore to go through all that again. And the venues are always the wonkiest. They sometimes like to make .dbc files instead.
  • SPARKY1922SPARKY1922 Posts: 5,965 Member
    Oh heck @ZeeGee

    I really feel your pain when I tried to use my store content that i had downloaded for my digital (Origin) game with my disc base game on another hard drive I had no clue at the time my whole store content required re downloading using a disc for my disc version of the game so i found an old laptop stuck the base game disc into that signed into the store and downloaded it all and then all my store content worked on my disc game after that however i still get the occasional failed to install player made lots/CC on my disc game which i can only presume has something to do with the 1.69 patch (or something i am unaware of) that may have been used to create it with. I truly hope you manage to get is sorted quickly as it can be sooooo frustrating..

    @ciane just wondering if you know how to get store content to work with the steam version of the game as in would the downloaded store content when using origin work with steam or would there be some other method that has to be used? Just curious.
  • ZeeGeeZeeGee Posts: 5,355 Member
    @ciane But I DID redownload all the content! :weary: My backups wouldn't work so I redownloaded everything and did a complete reinstall. I put the sim3pack for Serenity Retreat back in downloads and it's showing installed, but it's not there. I'm just going to start from the beginning again... sigh

    @SPARKY1922 I actually have 3 backups! I have backups for the disc edition on my desktop, the 1.69 Origin edition backups on my husbands desktop, and now the Steam edition on my laptop. With all those backups you'd think something would work but noooooo....

    Okay, I thought of something. The content patch folder that no longer automatically downloads, is that the same for every edition of the game?
  • SPARKY1922SPARKY1922 Posts: 5,965 Member
    Hi @ZeeGee

    I wonder what is going on for you then??? As far as I know patches between the disc and digital version of the game are also different but cannot swear to that I may be just thinking it is but I do have my patches labeled disk and digital in my backup folder-)

    I had a little search on this because it looks like you are saying the issues you are experiencing are with steam so i am wondering if you have seen these threads below regards problems with S3 steam patches for the game..

    crinrict stated on one thread that the patch is usually available to Steam users on the same day but there seems to be a delay (for whatever reason). Obviously these were the days when players were still getting patches This makes me wonder if there are steam game only patches for their version of the S3 game and that could be what is causing your issues? Players have also commented that despite being led to believe the steam game is patched automatically to 1.67 they are finding out it is not when it comes to the launcher and there are a couple of players who appear to have resolved this by going into the game files themselves.

    I just tried to find patches for steam S3 game that could be downloaded on the internet and came across another one of crincrict's threads where it states These patches are NOT for Steam Users. Steam has its own update system so if you are using anything but steam patches for the game it looks like this could be your issue however i cannot find direct downloads of any steam patches for S3???


    I have found several steam threads you might find useful on this issue:

    https://steamcommunity.com/app/47890/discussions/0/3277925755444392397/

    https://steamcommunity.com/app/47890/discussions/0/1290691937709459995/

    https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/Sims-3-Steam-Version-Launcher-Not-Updating-And-Stuck-At-Version/td-p/5446019

    https://www.protondb.com/app/47890

    Let me know if you manage to get it resolved :)
  • cianeciane Posts: 16,996 Member
    edited August 2019
    I don't have first hand knowledge of Steam, only digital downloads and discs. I'm all discs now, but at one point had some digital downloads from Origin. So, I just reinstalled the discs without Origin. The content patch for the store update was pre 1.69, so that's what I use. And, as far as I know, you can't get just the store patch update separately through Origin. I want to say that the store update copy you have SHOULD work for Steam; but of course, that COULD be causing problems. If you saved a copy of the update from a system that had only discs or a combination of discs and digital downloads, then those files MIGHT be coded slightly differently; just as the store content itself.

    So, yes, it MIGHT be a problem with the store update and any content that was made after that second store update. Serenity Retreat was also tied to one of the worlds; so the difference might somehow relate to that; though, if you redownloaded everything, then you'd likely have the same coding on the world as on the venue.

    Exploring the links that Sparky provided will hopefully help.

    Bottom line: Try the copy of the store content patch update provided by the steam user, deleting the obvious spaces.
    https:// //mega. nz/#!z9BxzARD!rzzIiBZyOEhnXoYacZUzBg0Ce1FvP68Fzk995fQp4n0

    Another simmer commented: If you updated your Steam game using Origin's patch, you broke your game.
    Post edited by ciane on
  • ZeeGeeZeeGee Posts: 5,355 Member
    I don't remember what game my content patches came from, probably all disc. Anyway, thanks for your input, and thanks @SPARKY1922 for the links. Here I go again. :weary:
  • SPARKY1922SPARKY1922 Posts: 5,965 Member
    @ciane

    In my love of all things Sims 3 despite not really playing my Origin digital version anymore the last time steam had a sale this year i purchased the whole steam sims 3 as well just in case I ever needed it and now looking at the difficulties with the patches and store content with steam I am beginning to think i have made a mistake because i would never play without all my store content as after all i did legally purchase it all and want to be able to use it on any version of the game i choose to play..

    I was very surprised when I was simply able to use the sims 3 base game disc alone in my spare laptop to download all my store content as clearly some content was related to other packs but it still all downloaded.

    I am wondering if only using the base game in the digital origin version of the game if all the store content could all be downloaded in the same way as that is not something i have ever checked..

    I need another laptop now so I can try out my steam version of the game to see if i can I download my store purchase onto that version of the game now and more importantly make it work lol :)
  • SPARKY1922SPARKY1922 Posts: 5,965 Member
    ZeeGee wrote: »
    I don't remember what game my content patches came from, probably all disc. Anyway, thanks for your input, and thanks @SPARKY1922 for the links. Here I go again. :weary:

    I wish you luck :)
  • ZeeGeeZeeGee Posts: 5,355 Member
    @SPARKY1922 Thanks for the links. Someone uploaded the Steam version of the content patch so I'm trying again with that in the folder. Whew!
  • SPARKY1922SPARKY1922 Posts: 5,965 Member
    @ZeeGee

    wonderful let me know if it works please as I need to try my steam game out at some point.. also could you direct me to the download link for the patch as I must have missed that reading through the links..have you managed to download all your store content into your steam version of the game yet or was it that when you had downloaded your store content it would not work because of the patch incompatibilities?

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